Chairperson and Minister, we have a crisis of accidents in our roads. A collision between a minibus and a bus on the R81 near Maphalle village in Mopani District Municipality last months claimed 40 lives. Six other people were burnt beyond recognition and died on the same stretch of road at Dingamazi village between Giyani and Polokwane.
In the following week, two people were killed and eight others injured when a taxi crashed into a tree of the R600 in Winterton in KwaZulu-Natal. In the Western Cape, three people died in Rawsonville weigh bridge when a car crossed over the white lines and collided head-on with a correctional services car. Death by transport accidents is number three on the top five unnatural causes of death.
Let's call for o multistakeholder summit and look at international best practices to do something about the killings in our roads. In Moloto Road, the road that connects Tshwane and Nkangala region in Mpumalanga, we don't have to wait for a summit, we must install speed humps every 3 kilometers and every kilometers in 33 communities and 57 along the Moloto Road. Road accidents will not be stopped by you wearing traffic official uniforms and standing on the side of the road for pictures for social media and grandstanding. There must be deliberate, systematic and practical solutions. The purpose of this mini- plenary is an opportunity to debate transport proposed budget.
However, we cannot debate the transport budget without fully understanding the backlog and true budget deficit.
What is the true backlog and budget deficit? We have more than
350 kilometers of unpaved roads in South Africa. This will cost more than R700 billion and this is almost half of South Africa's current budget. Only 48% of Metrorail carriages are available for service the rest are old, poorly maintained, broken or burnt.
The South African National Roads Agency Limited, Sanral, has a list of more than 373 bridges registered as planned and cannot tell us by when these will be finished, let alone how much it will cost. The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Prasa, has just over 1 000 train drivers and needs 979 in the next five years trained and employed, but for a state-owned company that can barely pay salaries, this is not going to happen. The budget at R64 billion that we are expected to debate proves our point that the ruling party cannot possibly reimagine our society in a more equal, spatially transformed and functioning spaces.
However, to begin to reimagine our society through transforming transport and public transport, we must first get the land back and we must amend section 25 of the Constitution to have all the land in the custody of the state. Let's expand the railways, buy new trains and invest in affordable speed trains along Moloto Road between Tshwane and Nkangala, between Soweto and Johannesburg, between Musina and Johannesburg, between Johannesburg and Cape Town and most importantly between Johannesburg and Durban to transport people and goods that come from the harbour.
Let's retain and expand the state ownership of central transport and logistics modes such as Transnet, Prasa and establish shipping manufacturing company. South Africa must start to play a meaningful and broader role in transforming the maritime industry, build ships and create jobs. Let's allow students to travel for free on public transport provided they carry their students' cards. We must provide free transport to all pensioners, people living with disabilities and orphans to get to and from social grants pay points. Let's provide sale and accessible transport for persons with disabilities.
Let's incentivise and encourage innovation and use of technology to grow transport, aerospace, drones and create jobs. Let's allow the use of labour- absorbing construction methods to build quality roads for all communities. Let's explore a practical way in which the state can help the taxi industry financially to protect and promote efficient public transport.
We know that there is no money that is immediately available to do all these that is why we are proposing a build, operate and transfer model without user fee unless users are already paying for that service. Let us get rid of consultants whose budget for the 2019-20 has increased from R266 million to R462 and build state capacity.
Our people in Gauteng have rejected the e-tolls. The political squabbles between the Minister of Finance and the premier of Gauteng are nothing but a sideshow. The call by the President for the Minister of Transport, Minister of Finance and Gauteng to bring a proposal to resolve the e-toll stand-offs is a waste of time. While you are busy with the report that you are going
to table in Cabinet, make a public announcement that e-tolls are cancelled.
As the EFF, we also want to condemn the xenophobic attacks on the truck drivers that lead to torching of trucks on our highways. The EFF rejects this Budget. I thank you. [Applause.]